Spotlight

Educator Pat Deubel was concerned with the way elementary school students choose to conduct research for school projects. Fortunately, there are best practices for teachers to adopt and safe websites for learners to visit, which she shares here with THE Journal.

The Institute of Education Sciences has awarded the second largest public school district in the nation, the Los Angeles County School District, a grant to study the efficacy of online credit recovery classes for high school students.

Sixty-five percent of educators expressed confidence in using digital technology in their classrooms, which is a 7 percent increase over last year, according to a recent survey by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Teachers, materials, students — the big 3 of K–12. Materials are changing dramatically, but teachers and teaching especially is about to be disrupted in the Christensen-sense. Machine learning will drive personalized learning into America’s schools. On that you can rely!

Rote obedience isn’t the way to successfully implement a blended learning model, according to a new case study focused on schools in Colorado and Washington, D.C. that illustrates the importance of flexibility to provide more personalized experiences for each student.

Kahoot!, the popular game-based learning platform, has added $10 million of funding to its series A financing round, the company said Wednesday. A group of new private investors from Norway, where Kahoot! is based, led this series A extension funding round, joining current investors Microsoft Ventures, Creandum and Northzone.

The global educational toys market is anticipated to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of close to 10 percent from the present to 2021, according to a recent report by market research firm Technavio.

This year, more than 29,000 female students took an Advanced Placement (AP) Computer Science (CS) exam, according to a report by Code.org. That’s 11 times more than the number of female students, 2,600, who took the AP CS exam 10 years ago.

The largest public charter home study program in California has partnered with the online education marketplace Outschool to bring more than 1,000 live online classes to home schooled students in nine counties.

The new partnership will allow users to access both systems with a single sign on and provide improved integration between the PowerSchool student information system and the Schoology LMS in an effort to more easily provide individualized instruction..

Upcoming K–12 Grants

Sponsor: Constellation Energy
Award: Two categories: $25,000 for grades 6–12, $50,000 for college and university
Number of Awards: Not specified (historically 12 to 17 per year)
Application Deadline: Oct. 1

Sponsor: Toshiba America Foundation
Award: Two categories: Up to $5,000 and more than $5,000
Number of Awards: Not specified
Application Deadline: Up to $5,000 awarded on a rolling basis; Nov. 1 deadline for applications for more than $5,000

Sponsor: SparkFun
Award: STEM/STEAM-releated prize packages, event and team sponsorships and other types of support
Number of Awards: Varies
Application Deadline: Ongoin: third Thursday of each month; awards announced on the last business day of each month

Deadline: Ongoing
Award: No more than 10 percent of an organization's annual operating expenses or 25 percent of the total budget for the project being funded; awards have ranged from the hundreds to the millions of dollars.
Number of Awards: Varies
Qualification: Project should "directly serve or impact children living in urban poverty, particularly in the areas of education, family economic stability (including microfinance) and childhood health."

Professional Resources

Blended learning is one of the most exciting developments in education in recent years, showing the promise to improve student learning through the combination of technology and face-to-face interaction with teachers. THE Blended Classroom, a new newsletter from the editors of THE Journal, is published twice monthly.

Are you enjoying the online newsletters, but missing the magazine? Sign up for a free subscription to THE Journal and receive news, opinions, and feature articles about technology in K-12 education. For complete details and to subscribe online, click here.